A tale of two wicketkeepers

NICK FRIEND: Two wicketkeepers: one in the final, one who could have given no more to the cause. They embraced at the end, dripping in sweat, contrasting emotions and mutual respect. Both have left their mark

Australia toyed with their formula. How many spinners? How many seamers? How much batting? How many bowling options? What about Steve Smith? What about David Warner’s form? How to get the best out of Glenn Maxwell? Ashton Agar? Mitchell Marsh? How about both? How about neither? What about Marsh at No.3? Should we split the coaching structure?

It hasn’t always been a smooth ride: not many observers lumped on Aaron Finch’s men as the takeaway from their shellacking by England. Instead, there was a premature post-mortem into the misuse of prime assets. But then, having already seen off South Africa and Sri Lanka, they put their foot down to hammer Bangladesh and cruise past West Indies. All in a manner that was sufficiently rapid to revive a fading net run rate and qualify for the semi-finals, but also in such a way that their fear factor was renewed through Warner’s return to form and a supreme bowling attack.

All these things, and no mention yet of Matthew Wade. The same Matthew Wade who guided Australia over the line against South Africa in a rather different game – a turgid, rusty affair.

By his own admission, this isn’t the role in which he feels most comfortable, and finishing the innings comes with a unique volatility. This was only his third innings of the tournament; his second came amid the carnage against England. Only, Eoin Morgan’s men are on the way home. Wade, on the other hand, has one last assignment.

And he is the reason for it. Australia were marginal favourites going into the penultimate over, with 22 runs still needed. They weren’t expected, though, to pull it off with six balls still remaining. Shaheen Shah Afridi has been one of this competition’s stars and had settled into his evening by cannoning the perfect inswinger into Finch’s shin and landing the following delivery on Marsh’s toe. He survived on review.

Death bowling is equally volatile, however. This wasn’t Afridi’s first rodeo either: against India, in that famous ten-wicket destruction, his imperious three-over spell through the powerplay was followed by a chaotic, loose final over – featuring overthrows and a no-ball – that acted as a reminder of his fallibility. Even the best are mortal.

But back to Wade, such a typically Australian cricketer: a hardnosed fighter who never gives in. He saw Afridi – entrusted with an over so regularly considered the most important – and saw a place in Sunday’s final. If you know Wade, you know how he would see that scenario. There were no boundaries in the first three balls – only a dropped chance from Hasan Ali that, one dares suggest, will play on his mind for some time. Had he clung on – and Pakistan had already held more difficult opportunities to help themselves into a position of strength – Wade would have watched the final embers of an enthralling contest from the dugout.

^{Marcus Stoinis roars with delight after helping to see Australia home}

Instead, he owned his moment. Sport is a sliding doors industry, and that was its embodiment on the biggest stage. The drop was followed by three consecutive sixes, all of which came with separate meanings attached.

The first rubbed salt into the wound, making Australia favourites in the process. Still, though, not necessarily terminal for Pakistan.

The second was the game, wasn’t it? The camera panned to the sidelines, where Australian smiles had broken out. The tension shattered like the cutting of a ribbon. And it went miles: 96 metres – the kind of strike to break the spirit of a fielding team, made worse by how it was delivered: the very same swing over the legside that ought to have sent Wade back two balls earlier.

The third marked the end: the end of Pakistan’s wonderful tournament, the end of their six-year unbeaten run in the UAE. Another ramp, another six. Shades of Carlos Brathwaite – not so much in the commentary: cricket fans have known of Wade for years, but in the ruthless efficiency with which he completed a pressure-cooker run-chase.

He roared, his face reddening, before departing the stage in Dubai alongside Marcus Stoinis, whose role in this cannot be overstated. They walked from the arena with composed exteriors, as did Jimmy Neesham last night, sitting calmly in his seat as others briefly allowed themselves to lose their heads in the drama. There is one more level still to complete.

Australia were four wickets down at the halfway mark when Stoinis arrived at the crease, faced with Shadab Khan, who was having a day out of his own and greeted the right-hander with a pair of googlies, so often Stoinis’ kryptonite.

He muscled an unbeaten 40, and that is entirely the right verb for the occasion. Because he rarely looked completely at ease, blocking balls back to Haris Rauf and Hasan Ali, even as time was running out, at a stage of the game when batters so rarely look to defend like that. Before the dam burst in Afridi’s over, Stoinis had been beaten for pace to such a degree that what came next felt like an even unlikelier scenario.

But when the ball was in his arc, he had launched two sixes and a pair of fours, including one that whistled past the stumps at the non-striker’s end. Whereas Wade resorted to a deft touch – a legacy, he said afterwards, of Pakistan’s plans to bowl fewer slower balls than anticipated – Stoinis was at his most comfortable when he could bosh the white ball into the night sky.

^{Mohammad Rizwan was one of the players of the tournament}

When Wade’s third act was over – the ball carrying for six over the wicketkeeper’s head and landing on the tarpaulin directly behind the bowler’s arm – Pakistan’s band of heroes were frozen on their haunches.

They have been a magnificent watch, winners of hearts and minds. Only, not the trophy they came for.

They were the best team in this tournament almost from the very start, when they romped past India in a declaration of business that was at odds with the chaos of the previous weeks and months.

England and New Zealand had both pulled out of preparatory tours, while there was a stream of high-profile departures that at different moments left Pakistani cricket without a head coach or chief executive in the build-up to a tournament five years in the waiting. The chairman was new in the role, and the selection panel had come under fire for announcing its squad early and then changing it late.

A backroom team was cobbled together, including the unlikely combination of Matthew Hayden and Vernon Philander working under Saqlain Mushtaq – a fun, if inexperienced, assortment of former greats.

Hayden, especially, appears to have been a revelation: laughing, joking and mucking in whenever he has popped up on screen. Ahead of this semi-final, he spoke about his learnings from sitting down with Mohammad Rizwan to read from the Quran. At other times, he has reflected in awe of the humility running through his new team, moulded in the image of its captain, Babar Azam.

No partnership in history has plundered more runs together at a single T20 World Cup than the Babar-Rizwan axis. Rizwan, unhelmeted against Australia’s spinners, went to the landmark of 1,000 T20I runs in a calendar year – no one has ever reached that milestone before – by slog-sweeping Adam Zampa for six. A more likeable cricketer you would do well to find: the human embodiment of a caffeine rush, always wearing a smile and an unshakeable sense of fervour.

^{A cruel game...}

At one stage, after haring down the pitch for the umpteenth time in no time at all – only to be sent back via a high-pitched scream from Babar – his captain attempted to calm him down, to control that endearing freneticism.

If they were nerves, it was understandable. If it was excitement, even more so. Rizwan – who made 67 off 52 balls – represents his country in a manner that you’d like every player to represent their country. He had been in hospital overnight with a lung issue but still waltzed out to open the batting like a caged puppy unleashed.

Rizwan wasn’t going to miss this moment.

In a sense, he is still quite new to this. For a while, Sarfraz Ahmed was the man in possession – as captain and keeper. Rizwan, by contrast, wasn’t particularly fancied in this format: Karachi Kings opted not to retain him at the end of the Pakistan Super League in 2020, where he spent most of his three seasons on the sidelines as a reserve. He batted just 13 times in that period – between No.6 and No.8.

At this year’s draft, he went unpicked in his original category and was only snapped up by Multan Sultans as a cheaper option. The upshot is this: Rizwan, the second-highest run-scorer in this year’s PSL, has played T20I cricket in seven different countries across the last 12 months, recording half centuries in six of them.

It makes for a remarkable story, regardless of how this has ended for Pakistan, reflecting on what might have been and a job done, but not quite.

Two wicketkeepers: one in the final, one who could have given no more to the cause. They embraced at the end, dripping in sweat, contrasting emotions and mutual respect. Both have left their mark.